


swinging rats for injection

by hagewashi



Series: SUBJECT_05 [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Human Experimentation, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Self-Harm, obligatory lab rat au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26610634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hagewashi/pseuds/hagewashi
Summary: Number Five lands in 2019 a little too late and a little too young.The Commission collects its specimen.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Series: SUBJECT_05 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1935832
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	1. PROLOGUE_01

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I’ve "finished" enough to be postable in maybe…four years? Five? I am SO excited to share I am sitting here grinning stupidly at my screen as I type this. I have such a soft spot for deeply scientific fanfiction in the “human experiment” genre and this series provides so many opportunities for it. 
> 
> Tags will be added as I go, but expect this story to dive into extremely unethical scientific practices. I’ll put content warnings where needed.
> 
> Enjoy(?).

There is…something, about failure. Something he can’t exactly put a name to, a sour taste that hangs heavy on the tongue despite how much you swallow, one that clings to the roof of your mouth regardless of excuses. It's a something he isn't used to, a something he's never _been_ used to, even though he knows he’s had obstacles intentionally devised for failure thrown at him time and time again. He had always been good at that—displacing childish frustration into a bullish arrogance and the drive to be better, show off, prove whoever doubted him wrong. 

As he stares down at hands swimming in oversized gloves, that distinctive caustic tang lingers in his mouth. He thinks he might’ve failed…something. He doesn’t know what, but he’s pretty sure it had been important. 

A vague residue of panic clings to his skin. Soot is falling into his eyelashes and he struggles to blink it away. 

Something is very, very wrong. 

He looks around. It takes a moment for his eyes to stop watering and he waits for his surroundings to come into focus, but they never do. He might be surrounded by crumbling infrastructure. Rebar might be twisting up from the ground like fishhooks, sharp and skewering the air. He can’t really see. Memories that don’t feel like his provide a framework, and he guesses based off that. 

It smells like smoke. Ash falls from the overcast sky like snow in a tiny courtyard, like dust motes in uncleaned bedrooms. He flexes his hands, noting how the half-empty glove fingers _paff_ against his palm. It’s… 

This is familiar. Everything is painfully familiar, overwhelmingly familiar. Familiar enough to make his lungs forget how to function. He’s been here before, he knows it. This is— 

_April 1st. April 1st. April 1st._

—devastation. It’s the end of the world. 

He’s been here. 

Something feels wrong. More wrong than _I’m suddenly in the apocalypse_ wrong, more wrong than how normal it all feels. _He_ feels wrong. He should remember what happened, why he’s here, why his head hurts and why his stomach keeps trying to jump out of his throat, why his vision keeps swirling the beiges and grays of everything around him into a painful black. His thoughts won’t sit in a line, won’t click into their neat little web of connections and conclusions in that way he thinks should be normal. He can’t think at all, he doesn’t understand, a fine blue energy crackles along his wrists and that’s— 

It’s hard to breathe. He thinks it’s not just the shitty air, so it might be the panic still crawling up and down his skin. He’s shaking. Fuck. He needs to—step back. Analyze his surroundings. Someone taught him to do that once, just in case of emergency. Take note of his person, start simple; name. His name. He knows that. 

His name is Number Five. 

Number Five does not know how old he is. He is currently donning clothes sized six times too big for him, and when he shifts his left foot forward his toe doesn’t reach the tip of the boot ineffectively laced against his leg. He is surrounded by a rubble and desolation that carries with it an aching sense of déjà vu, one that makes his temples pound and teeth ache. 

There is an innate notion deep in his mind that tells him that he’s a very intelligent individual, but his inability to actually think at the moment is making him cast some doubts on that. Using his head is currently taking an inordinate amount of effort, and Number Five keeps finding his train of thought consistently derailing before he can establish anything about or around himself in detail. This is, admittedly, concerning. 

He possesses the ability to…teleport. Yes. He can rip open the fabric of space and walk through the resulting hole to end up someplace else. This process is entirely reliant upon mathematical formulas that he knows like the back of his hand, and his fingers twitch with a blue coruscation whenever they come to mind. There may be something else he can do with his powers, too. He’s not sure. 

He _is_ sure that he was on a mission. One that he failed. The sense of urgency about this fact won’t wane, even though Number Five isn’t certain what the mission was actually about. There were people involved. He thinks they were important. 

He is nauseated. He is shaking. He is tired. He is missing—someone. 

_I’m right here, Five._

He is not missing Delores. 

He does not remember the events leading up to his current circumstances. He is…confused, for lack of a better term, and he knows ‘confusion’ is an uncommon sensation for him. 

_It’s okay to be confused, Five,_ Delores says, familiarly gentle. _You’ve been though a lot._

“I don’t understand,” he admits to the dirty, open air, because he really doesn’t. His voice is discordantly young-sounding. It cracks on the ‘don’t’. 

_Maybe that’s for the best, right now._

He has never been one to doubt Delores, so she’s probably right, but—he’s _confused_ , and that forces an instinctive frustration to bubble up from somewhere he can’t place. It’s accompanied by a manic drive to _do_ something, to solve this problem he isn’t able to put words to. 

_April 1st._

Number Five presses his palms against his temples in a vain attempt to mitigate his headache. He can recognize that he’s getting upset, breathing hitching uncomfortably in his chest and mouth contorting into a quivering moue. The wreckage at his feet blurs with unshed tears and he feels beyond childish, feels like he’s experienced a lifetime of unspeakable atrocities and this doesn’t hold a candle to any of them. This is fucking _peanuts_ compared to the things he’s lived through, though he can’t recall any of them at the moment. 

He knows, inherently, that he should be more mature than this. He starts crying anyway. 

He is an adult. He is a child. He is scared. He wants to go home, but he can’t remember what ‘home’ actually refers to. 

Here is what Number Five knows: something _bad_ happened. Something horribly, inconceivably awful. 

People are dead. There are no less than a dozen corpses peeking out from the rubble around him, and the scent of rot and decay would be overwhelming if he didn’t feel so accustomed to it. It’s jarring while simultaneously not. 

A sound hits his ears. It takes a painstaking moment to decipher it over his ragged breathing and pounding heart, but it’s clear: the shift of rocks clattering against each other, falling to the ground and clacking across concrete. Five snaps his head to the side and sees— 

_Bodies. Corpses. He knows these people. Who are they?_

A human-shaped blur. Maybe ten feet to his right. There is a _clickclickclick_ that might be heels on the broken pavement, a sound that dislodges something familiar from the back of his head. It comes from everywhere and nowhere at once, and Number Five belatedly realizes he looks weak and miserable and easy to kill, face red and blotchy and horribly, horribly young. He cannot see the threat, not clearly, but his internal alarm screams at him to _do something_. His body instinctively falls into a defensive stance, and he steps back as the figure gets closer, closer, until— 

Half a granite column almost sweeps his legs out from under him. Number Five stops accordingly, his breaths coming out rushed, eyes rapidly attempting to blink the world back into focus. 

The blur stops when he does. It materializes slightly as it bends over: a woman, in some expensive silk dress whose folds smear together and warp uncomfortably at the edges of his vision. She is blatantly alive, chest rising and falling with ease, and this fact settles in his stomach unpleasantly, because—it’s not right. Shouldn’t he be the only person here? 

A black veil sequesters the finer details of her features from his scrambling sense of perception, but the red of her lips is overtly stark, like wine on white sheets, too noticeable and taking up most of her face. They pop in sharp contrast to the vague of everything else, and Number Five can’t stop himself from staring as they contort around words he’s not listening to. 

A gloved hand suddenly grips the oversized folds of his jacket much too tight. The contact is strange and _wrong_ and he involuntarily stumbles back, legs catching again on cylindrical stone. It eases him down to sit, a thumb idly rubbing circles into his collarbone through the thick leather, cycling in a smooth, repetitive motion that makes him want to bend the appendage back until it snaps. 

When he focuses again, the woman’s veil has been popped up over her pinned hair, blue eyes scanning his face with something akin to amusement. She tips her head with a curious noise, stained lips quirked into an ambiguous smile. He finds his eyes drawn back to them. 

“…you here, Number Five?” He watches her mouth shift and move, her words sounding smothered, flickering sluggishly through his mind. Everything is so hard to process. Why? “It seems you’ve gotten lost again.” 

Seconds tick by. Number Five attempts to process this information. 

He is lost; that much seems probable. Number Five has no idea where he is, and embarrassingly he has even less of an idea about what is happening. It takes longer than it should to realize that she knows his name, which _isn’t_ probable, especially considering that Number Five is sure he has never seen this woman before in his life. He doesn’t know her. This tidbit takes precedence above anything else. “My name,” he grits out between clenched teeth, careful to avoid biting his tongue, “How do you know that?” 

The woman’s mouth tilts with an affect of concern at his response, eyebrows dipping slightly. It feels demeaning. “You’re confused,” she says slowly. 

His heart hammers against his ribcage. “No,” he says instantly, because visible disorientation is a sign of weakness and this woman is still a threat. “I don’t know you,” he asserts. He is positive of that. 

The world sways dangerously at the edges of his vision. Number Five thinks he should jump somewhere, should leave right now. Blue sparks begin to swirl around his palms, but. Where? He can hear blood pounding in his ears. 

The woman’s face keeps swinging in response to his words. This time, the corners of her lips and eyebrows sway upwards with pity. Another hand comes to rub his arm, and the touchtouchtouch _burns_. For a moment Five loses track of the noise around him. His breath catches painfully. He feels a strange vibration in his throat. 

“…’s okay, you’ve been through a lot,” she’s saying when his mind shifts back again, words oddly reminiscent of Delores’ from earlier. The offending hand is gone. The one that was previously on his shoulder is now tucking a greasy strand of hair back behind his ear in a strangely maternal gesture. Five finds himself hating it. “Why don’t we go home?” 

And that’s—hm. Home. Because home is…he has to get back there. Right? 

_Five, you said you didn’t recognize her,_ Delores says, a controlled urgency belying her tone. _How would she know where ‘home’ is?_

He _doesn’t_ know her. But he also doesn’t know a lot of other things pertinent to this situation, like how he got here or what’s going on, so it’s possible that he…forgot? 

_Hmm…_ There’s a pause where Number Five can picture her face furrowing with consternation. _Maybe you do,_ she concedes, hesitantly. _And her figure_ is _a little familiar..._

Number Five feels his face settle into an uncertain frown. He tries to think past this mental wall, tries to mentally calculate the threat this woman poses. If she were here to kill him, she would’ve done so already. She wouldn’t bother lying, wouldn’t bother— _babying_ him. “I’m not—” his voice cracks, “I’m not a kid. Don’t talk to me like I’m twelve.” 

And she smiles. It’s a great, wide stretch of red, communicating something Number Five can’t exactly put a name to. When she starts speaking, however, he knows her tone—intimately. Number Five knows it like he knows using it is second nature to him. She is talking to a toddler, words laced with a humored condescension and the sparest hint of pity. 

“Five…” she starts, “Five, you're only eleven.” 

__

The woman finally straightens up to her full height, and now that Number Five can see _her_ as opposed to some amorphous blob, it strikes him how horrifically out of place she looks standing among the ash and fire as her dress sways daintily in the breezeless air. She is several inches taller than him and that—her words, this everything—doesn’t make any sense. It really, truly doesn’t. He _can’t_ be that young. 

__

But. 

__

But maybe he is a child. Maybe this woman—knows him. Maybe, maybe. One of his hands comes up to grip the side of his head, his hair, ruffling whatever semblance of order this woman just smoothed it down into. Hot tears blur his vision. Fuck. What the fuck. He shouldn’t be this confused. 

__

“You still don’t have a grasp on your powers,” she explains slowly, voice shifting into something that might be a little comforting, maybe. It still holds an annoying sing-song lilt that Number Five suspects is just the way she talks, and he tries to cling to the dwindling sense of irritation it rankles in order to ground himself. “We keep telling you not to try anything too big, but, well—” a laugh, “—you always were a bit mulish.” The woman takes a moment to pull out a cigarette holder, sticking one in and lighting it up. She takes a gentle puff. “You just end up here every time, and you get all…” She makes a trail of smoke as her hand twirls about the air, searching for the word that keeps getting thrown at him, “Confused.” 

__

“We?” Number Five repeats. He clings onto that word before he can process the rest of what she’s saying, before his head can catch up to tell him what an absolutely terrible idea it is to keep humoring her. 

__

She just smiles. “We were so worried about you. All weak and…” Another hand flitting gesture. “…Young. Alone.” 

__

_Seven children dressed in blazers. Four adults buried in rubble. Male, Female, Male, Male._

__

We. 

__

“You’d think the first time around would’ve taught you a lesson,” she continues, and the more she keeps talking the more disjointed memories kick their way to the surface of his brain. Panic starts crashing into him at the receding images. He had to do something, it was important. _What?_

__

__“… _really_ overexerted yourself…” _ _

__

__There’s too much going on at once. This woman’s voice sounds like nails-on-chalkboard and his vision is shaking and anxiety is starting to squeeze his chest again and _fuck_ , he feels like a fucking _infant_ , lost and stupid and helpless. He forces his eyes closed and teeth shut and grips his hair a little tighter, focuses on the pain shooting down his scalp instead of whatever the hell is going on. _ _

__

__“…In fact, I bet you don’t even remember my name.”_ _

__

___Five,_ Delores warns. _ _

__

__The side of his head feels warm and sticky. Number Five opens his eyes in an answer._ _

__

__“You call me The Handler.”_ _

__


	2. CHAPTER_01: ASSIMILATION

### 2\. MATERIALS AND METHODS

Researchers strictly adhered to the established guidelines of the National Institute of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (Anonymous, 1985a,b): (1) all _avoidable_ sources of distress and discomfort were eliminated, (2) the duration of procedures was minimized, in keeping with the objective of the studies, (3) no nociceptive or environmental stimuli were applied to the animal at any time after anesthetic (Cm-49f) discontinuation, (4) auditory/visual stimuli were kept to a minimum, compatible with electrophysiological recordings, and (5) the procedures were directly supervised by the senior investigator. 

##### 

_2.1. Subject_

SUBJECT_05 (Table 1.) was extracted from post-apocalyptic conditions after multiple successive time-travel attempts using tactics described by T. Handler (1956). For detailed information on the metaphysical minutae of this abililty, see attached supplementary material (Appendix 1). 

Abnormal results were found on a neurological examination (see: 3.1 Cognitive Deficits, 3.2 Neuroimaging). Prior to experiments, SUBJECT_05 was acclimated to lab conditions for 24 h (chamber maintained at 20°C under a 12 h light/dark cycle). He was fed according to the standard human experimental diet as described (Valerie et al., 1956). Anesthesia was induced _pro re nata_ with a novel compound developed by the T.C. Department of Neurochemistry, “Cm-49f,” to accommodate for SUBJECT_05’s aberrant physiology. 

  


Protocol of each experimental study was approved by the Temps Commission Review Board, and as such SUBJECT_05 was not required to give written informed consent. 

##### 

_2.2. Experimental chamber_

Experimental chamber (3.0 × 2.8 × 3.0 m) was specially developed for SUBJECT_05 in collaboration with the Temps Commission Metaphysics Division (XXXX, XX, USA), following stringent constructional guidelines for nullification of SUBJECT_05’s exhibited time/space manipulation abilities (Supplementary material, Table S1) while still allowing for teleportation within the confines of the room. Thorough testing is needed to determine effects on subject’s constitution. 

* * *

He is in a room. 

Whoever made it apparently didn’t deign to provide him any furniture, because Number Five is surrounded by 90 sq. ft of nothing. 

If his brain were in better shape, Number Five would claim he already has the room memorized. As it stands, however, he cannot remember changing into the white scrubs currently hanging off his frame, and he’s pretty sure they’ve been on him for less than six hours. 

Here is what Number Five knows about his surroundings without looking: there is one door, inlaid with a small, horizontal window at a height taller than his own eye-level; it’s locked. Linoleum flooring slides beneath his socked feet, and the expanse of it has been divided into a four-by-four grid with black paint that keeps careening whenever it enters his field of vision. A camera encased by glass pokes out the center of the ceiling. Rather than actual fluorescent tube lights, the rest of the ceiling glows with an LED white that somehow doesn’t hurt to look at. Electrical sockets sit near the bottom of each wall, and each one is painstakingly blocked with screws and steel. 

When he does allow himself to look, Number Five will find several panels outlined in the walls, though there is no obvious way for him to open them. His hand will often brush against a small PA speaker installed next to the door when he paces the room’s perimeter, arm outstretched, but there aren’t any buttons for him to activate it. It’s probably intended to be a source of one-way conversation from outside—unless there’s a microphone hidden somewhere? 

He’ll search for one later. Right now, his legs are tired. There really isn’t anything for him to do in here but walk and think, and thinking will take him back through blue paths and clocks ticking, winding around corpses and the end of the world, fire and fire and neon microcosms that twist back onto themselves until everything is one large blur and he won’t be able to see them anymore, their eyes are glassy and dead and plastic, but he’s going to make it back, he will, he just has to figure this out and he’ll get there. 

_April 1st._ The date keeps ringing in his head, and that’s another thing he knows: April 1st is important. 

His legs are tired. He wants—chalk. He needs to write, equations are bubbling under the surface of his skull and Number Five will forget them if he doesn’t write them down because he can’t even remember the number to his age. He wants chalk and needs to write even though he’s pretty sure nothing would show up on the sterile white of these walls anyway. 

He closes his eyes. Opens them. Starts pacing again. 

Nobody has come into the room yet. He thinks it’s strange that nobody has at least _tried_ to communicate with him, because it’s been—how long? Fuck. There was a woman before, wasn’t there? 

_We, we, we._

He has to stop himself from lingering too long on splintered memories, from getting too agitated, because if he does then the little subconscious equation fragments he can never control will pile up and breach the fog at the forefront of his mind and no, no, once it does he’ll— 

Number Five is on the other side of the room, now. His stomach lurches violently as he tries to hold himself upright against the wall, fingers digging into the slight indentations of a metal panel he hasn’t been able to figure out how to open. He tries—to breathe. Inhale, sharp exhale. He grits his teeth. 

This is not an environment conducive to spatial jumping. It shreds his insides and reaches around his spinal column and _yanks_ , a sickly, horrid sensation of barely snapping back together the right way again. He’s beginning to feel a migraine press at his temples and he can't quite hold back a groan. 

Something Number Five has become intimately acquainted with is the fact that he cannot jump out of this room. (His several feeble attempts resulted in him slamming into the wall, and a large line of bruises now trails up his shoulders. He keeps forgetting he already tried.) 

In short: he’s trapped. In a slightly longer synopsis: there is something very, very wrong with him, and Number Five has a sneaking suspicion that is how he ended up here in the first place. 

Despite his failing recollection, Number Five considers it fortunate that he hosts an admirable intelligence. He is acutely aware of what all this means—the scrubs, the sterile smell permeating every inch of this room, the precaution put into preventing his escape: he is a lab rat. Pure and simple. Five might not remember this conclusion in ten minutes, but he knows it right now. That’s enough. 

Number Five is not panicking about this. He is frustrated, sure. Annoyed that nobody will tell him precisely what’s going on, absolutely. But he is not panicking. He wants to leave. He wants to get back to—whatever it was he was doing. The corners of the room may blur together until he convinces himself its dimensions are cylindrical, but he’d be able to figure out how to work around that if he left. Probably. 

Breathing is easier now, though. His stomach is settling and his legs are tired. Hesitantly, Number Five slides down to sit on the floor. His feet jut over one of the black painted lines, and he distantly wonders what purpose the stupid grid serves. 

_Probably to track your movement,_ Delores responds. _There’s a camera recording what you do in here. Remember?_

He does remember. That’s one of the few things he _can_ remember, and the thought of someone watching him smack into the wall over and over again while jotting down notes and thinking him desperate instead of just—confused?—makes his face burn. He is trapped, yes, but not desperate. Not yet. 

Five looks back to the floor, stark black lines against white squares making his retinas sway. He could probably scrape the paint off with his nails, if he really wanted to. 

_You could,_ Delores agrees, _But what would that achieve? Besides ruining your nails. Don’t chew them again, by the way. They finally look healthy._

At her prompting he inspects them. She’s right; they aren’t chewed to the quick anymore. When did they…? 

_Don’t think about it, Five._

He doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a vague direction of where I want to go with this (sequel included), but if there are any specific experiments you want to see, let me know! My forte is neuroscience, so I’d love to hear ideas from a different perspective.  
> You can send me a message on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ddtfjxcvhhlwfib?s=09%22) if you’re shy or averse to commenting here (no need to follow, my dm requests are open to everyone haha).  
> Also of note: I MIGHT make graphs/figures to put in this. I have fantasized about an opportunity to do something like this for years, and in fact the idea of doing this composes approximately 80% of my motivation for writing this…I just need to figure out how to format it. MIGHT need to figure out work skins.

**Author's Note:**

> I also feel obligated to mention that the lack of "time travel messes with the mind” fic is ALARMING. If you've written any form of Five experiencing psychosis/dementia PLEASE know that I love you.


End file.
